Welcome to the Dating Show! Today we have our contestants–the Businessman; the Jerk; and the Brainiac–all competing for the lovely hand of one jaw-dropping madame. The contest: bob for caramel apples in a barrel the size of an ant!

It ever seem like that to anyone else?

You see a painted target–the painted target you have been eyeing for some time–and luckily you still have a good number of arrows in your holster; but are there arrows enough to compensate for all the target has to offer?

Maybe an arrow is flat. Maybe your bow string snapped a second earlier.

It is impossible to account for all the mishaps which may occur in the course of pre-going-places-with-another-person. Hm, sounds catchy.

The thing to remember; however is not the name of the game, but the game itself. Too many people focus on labels–the urge to slap a title on a flowering relationship; and this can be destructive…hastily destructive.

Artificial cookies never taste as good as the cookies baked thoroughly in an oven to the point of a crisp browning–mmm, it makes the mouth water; and yet eagerly these cooks crank the dial on the stove and heat those suckers up, because, honey, the chocolate is only ever tasty when it’s melted.

Or so it appears.

That said, the dates themselves are to be savored. Yes, the browned cookies are going to be eaten; you have watched that timer run its ticks and its tocks for a satisfying desert. But when will the timer run out? No one can know.

All is left to do is sit and wait and enjoy what is served until it does so.

Truthfully, despite the difficulties and the doubts which can arise it is a ride worth taking; for as in any journey the most meaningful memories are contained within the steps it took to reach that red carpeted end.

Go ahead and dunk your face in the barrel! Whoever said caramel apples came easy?

Think daily, 

A Southpaw